On Thu, 8 Dec 2016 03:03:55 -0000 (UTC), Leon Schneider
wrote:

Scott Dorsey wrote on 7 Dec 2016 21:06:25 -0500:

There is a cellphone alignment tool? I have done the string and measuring
tape thing (and generally been more satisfied with it than I have been by
sending it to shops with expensive tools operated by high school kids),
but I'd be willing to spend a couple hundred dollars to do a better job.
Tell me more!

There are three jobs almost nobody does at home, all three of which I'd
love to learn how to do because they can't be as hard as people think:
1. Paint your car
2. Replace & balance tires
3. Align your suspension

Trust me, painting your car is a lot harder than it looks -
particularly to do a decent job "at home"

Replacing and balancing tires requires either reasonable equipment or
a lot of sweat and sometimes blood and tears to go with it. Doing a
proper accurate ballance job requires complex equipment.

Alignment is another story - not hard to measure and adjust toe. Not
terribly hard to check camber, but measuring caster requires special
tools.

Depending on the car, the suspension issue is twofold:
a. You have to *understand* what you're doing
b. You have to *measure* what you've got

An alignment, like changing oil, should be done as often as you can do it,
but, like changing oil, in reality, alignments are done far less than
people say they do them.

Alignments on today's vehicles really only need to be done if the
vehicle is damaged. or parts are replaced. They don't "go out of
alignment" unless something bends or wears.

Why?
Because they're expensive (about $100 on sale where I live but I know the
price varies greatly) and they take effort (an hour minimum but more like
three hours from leaving the house to getting back to the house).

The main problem people have with alignment is self made.
They *think* they need a tool that costs $100K.

But that $100K one-man-operated alignment tool has, just as an example, a
$20K lift and a $10K laser system and $30K of software to handle all cars
and a $5,000 printer option, etc.

None of which a home garage mechanic needs.
That tool is made for a different purpose - which is to get a huge variety
of cars in and out of that shop in no time fast by one guy.

Also, that $100K tool measures stuff that you can't do anything about, such
as tracking and ackerman angles and steering axis inclination, etc.

My sedan only has 3 settable items:
a. Front toe
b. Rear camber
c. Rear toe

That's it. Nothing else is adjustable (although camber plates can be put
nio the front struts).

And if you cannot measure the caster and camber you don't know if
there is anything wrong - but your tires wear and the car pulls to the
left or right. You can't tell if the car is tracking properly or if it
has a bent or twisted uni-body or sub frame.
I've had to shift the subframe to balance the canber on many a vehicle
- and I've had to grind out mounting holes to tweak and shift parts to
optimize alignment on many vehicles. I've had to replace struts and
spindles to get alignment back into spec after someone kissed a curb
or bounced through a pothole - or after colission repairs that were
not done properly - very often on vehicles someone had recently
purchased - not knowing it had been previously damaged.

So, from that perspective, home tool only needs to measure toe & camber.
Nothing else.

Toe is relatively easy, especially with a helper.
So is camber.

Camber is just an angle, and toe is just a distance.
Smartphones can measure angles easily.

And not always terribly accurately - and you still need to know the
car is sitting level to start with -

I just googled for Android angle-measurement apps and these came up:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ode.clinometer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d....anglemeterpro
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ira.protractor
https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...ode.isetsquare
etc.

The only thing a home owner needs are knowledge and jigs.

The lack of knowledge is the *real* reason most homeowners don't do
alignment at home, but the lack of jigs slows them down.

For example, you need a jig to measure the midpoint of the tire treads
wheel to wheel (or worse, wheel to centerline of the vehicle).

What do you need that for? The inner edge of the rim or the outer
edge of the rim works just as well, if not better than the "center of
the tread" and is how real alignment equipment works - and it checks
to make sure the rim is "true" and compensates if it is not - - -

And you need camber plates (yes there are redneck methods) to adjust
camber.

But the *real* reason most people don't do a home alignment is that you
have to *think* real hard to do it because the measurements are *always* in
the wrong units from what you're measuring.

This post is long enough, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Only less than 1 in 1000 people is "capable" of doing a proper
alignment without proper equipment - and only about 1 in 4 (being
charitable here) mechanics can do it WITH the proper equipment.


That's my story - and I'm sticking to IT. As a former mechanic and
former service manager and shop foreman who has had a few very good
front end men, and a lot more who would starve to death doing it flat
rate and choke on their come-backs.

You are obviously a lot less fussy than the average customer.